What Makes a Marriage Successful?

This week’s show on “Relationships 101” on http://www.webtalkradio.net was an animated and fascinating discussion with Doctors Charles and Elizabeth Schmitz on ingredients of a successful marriage.

Here’s what made the conversation so interesting.
1. For starters, this power couple has been married to each other for 43 years and counting. And they plan to make it to their Golden Anniversary.
2. They have interviewed over 1000 couples on 6 continents in over 70 cities, and they’re not done yet.
3. The first criterion the couples they interviewed for their qualitative research project had to meet was being married for at least 30 years.
4. Once they met that criterion, the Schmitzes had a standard interview protocol that allowed them to determine if these marriages were successful, or merely long.
5. If they were deemed successful, then the interview proceeded.

The results of their work are summarized in their recent book, Building a Love That Lasts: The Seven Surprising Secrets of Successful Marriage.

On the show, I challenged them on areas where I thought our work and perspectives differed. For example, in none of their examples did I read their views on the importance of effectively resolving conflict to a successful marriage. While they acknowledged that they, too, occasionally fight, their relationship and those of the couples they interviewed were peaceful the majority of the time. And so is my marriage. However, I absolutely know that couples who refuse to fight never enjoy the depth of intimacy that is possible when couples can fight fairly and successfully work through their inevitable differences.

Tune in to this week’s show on “Relationships 101” on webtalkradio.net. Here’s the link. http://tinyurl.com/yzxnexy

Enjoy the show. And don’t worry if you can’t listen live. Shows remain in the webtalkradio.net archives for 3 months.

Dismantling Defensive Scaffolding

Yesterday, I blogged about Having the Guts to Allow Someone to Love You. And I promised an article on how to dismantle the defenses you erected in order to keep yourself safe. Of course, these steps are much easier said than done. So be patient with yourself.

Although these remarks are in the context of having the courage to accept love, the process I am outlining here can be applied to dismantling defenses in general.

Let’s suppose that you have finally seen that you are in your own way when it comes to receiving love. Then what? How do you change that?

Step 1: Realize that you react defensively, knee-jerk style when a spouse or partner shows their love toward you.

Step 2: Develop an observing ego. Do this by metaphorically learning to sit on your own shoulder and watch yourself interact.

Step 3: Initially, you probably will realize you have reacted defensively sometime after the fact. That’s okay. This realization will be a major building block to your ability to stop the pattern.

Step 4: Even when you notice yourself reacting defensively, it is unlikely that you will be able to stop yourself at first. But it is important that you notice your patterned response. Don’t beat yourself up about it. You’ll get better.

Step 5: Finally, you will be able to see yourself reacting defensively when you are in the middle of it. This allows you to back up and start again. Now you can choose a better, more functional reaction.

Here’s a caveat. If you are emotionally invested in a relationship with someone who fits this description, ask yourself an important question. What’s in it for me that I choose to love someone who is emotionally unavailable?

Remember this: It’s a lot easier to want than to have.

Having the Guts To Let Someone Love You

Have you ever tried to love someone who was bound and determined not to allow it? I have. It sure is frustrating, even infuriating, isn’t it?

Since to love and be loved is a universal human need, it surely isn’t reasonable and logical for anyone to reject love. But on a whole other level, it makes perfect sense. This concept is counterintuitive. Let me explain.

People who are afraid to be loved suffer from a very deep intimacy fear. But they don’t know they are afraid. This is because the reasons they got this way have long since passed into their unconscious mind. This is especially true if the situation that created this logjam happened in their childhood.

Keeping themselves at arm’s length from anyone who offers love serves to insulate them so effectively that they don’t even recognize that they are afraid. They just “know” they are easily irritated about this, or feel self-righteous about that because they believe they can’t trust anyone.

Perhaps the most precarious part about trying to relate to these people is that the more you attempt to give them love, the more they will fight you, rejecting your attempts. This often becomes a crazy-making pattern. This allows them to build the wall brick by brick that they hope will keep them “safe.” Never mind it’s a lonely, empty, frightening existence. But at least they can’t get hurt this way, they often reason however unconsciously.

It takes courage to allow yourself to be loved, because it tends to stir up childlike feelings of dependency. Along with this are powerful feelings of fear, which is the reason people develop this counter dependent response in the first place. The unconscious rationale for their defensiveness is, if you just don’t allow someone to really love you, you’ll never become dependent and can never be let down.

The bottom line is that when these defenses were constructed, they were an early decision designed for survival. However, these defensive strategies no longer serve them in adulthood. Therefore, these self-protective barriers need to be dismantled. Check back on my blog tomorrow to see how to go about doing that. Clearly, it is easier said than done.

A baby step to get you started is to follow the advice of Martha Beck in a recent issue of O The Oprah Magazine. She wrote, “Every time life brings you to a crossroads, from the tiniest to the most immense, go toward love, not away from fear.”

More tomorrow.

Challenging Workplace Relationships

There are many energy vampires in the workplace. People who run around like Chicken Little proclaiming, “The sky is falling!” Whiners who incessantly complain about how they’ve been wronged by a boss, co-worker, or family member. And yet, they attempt no constructive solutions. Chatterboxes who talk incessantly and say nothing because they are anxious and don’t know constructive ways to bind their anxiety. And then there are bullies. And it makes matters much worse when those bullies are bosses. These "leaders" have managed to bamboozle someone higher up about their qualifications to lead. And where they exercise their “leadership” the most is in creating a highly toxic environment.

Toxic bosses regularly set team members up for failure, blaming them when they can’t accomplish the impossible. They empower people, who are already difficult enough to work with, to become impossible.

And yet who can simply quit their job in this recession?

Many times, people want to help make the situation better, but they don’t know how. This is particularly true when they are not in a position of power on the job. These employees must grapple with questions such as:

• What happens when you have a big blow up with someone you work with, but you have to continue working with them? How do you do that? Is it even possible?

• What about having ongoing tension or conflict with someone you work directly or indirectly with. How do you manage that?

• How do you collaborate if you're being forced into a situation where you have to work with an old nemesis? Do you set aside old grievances and the knowledge you have about this person to start over again for the good of the team? Is that even possible?

It can be precarious to blow the whistle to upper management. But there are times to do so and clearly, there are times not to do this. But how does the average employee know which is which? How can they be constructive without jeopardizing their own job?

Today, I have started a discussion group on LinkedIn to tackle workplace issues such as these called Challenging Workplace Relationships. Please join me in reading the comments and adding your own questions and opinions. Let’s make this a useful discussion group for folks who are struggling to connect with those who have constructive suggestions and solutions.

And please join me on March 8th on “Relationships 101” on www.webtalkradio.net when I interview Roger Hall, an executive who literally spent his career traveling the world helping companies to neutralize their toxic, conflict-ridden work environments. We will specifically focus on coping with bullies in the workplace.

You won't want to miss these interesting and essential conversations.

We’re Not Raising Our Children; Society Is

Yesterday on my radio show, “Relationships 101,” I interviewed psychotherapist J.E. Wright, author of The Sexualization of America’s Kids. He specializes in treating children and adolescents who have been victimized by the sexualized messages with which they are bombarded daily. Unfortunately, those messages generally are not from their parents or other responsible adults. Rather, they come from television, their peers wwho are just as confused as they are, the Internet, social media and MTV. And the more parents are unaware of this, the more they are unable to appropriately protect their children from this barrage of distorted messages.

One of the net effects of this situation is that these media have contorted children’s barometer of what is normal. “Dials” on kids’ heads that once told them what was normal and what was not, when it comes to sex and sexuality, have been twisted into a new normal. And that new normal isn’t all that healthy, unless parents intervene and offer alternatives to the messages their kids receive from the culture. Too often, the result is sexting, random oral sex parties, and skiddle parties where kids set out whatever drugs they can get their hands on like adults set out chips and dip.

What is a parent to do? Parents, take heart. There are several things you can do to prevent your kids being confused and programmed by sexually titillating material with which they are inundated. One is to teach your kids about normal sexuality at home by modeling it. For example, it can be helpful to step from the shower to your bedroom naked. This helps children realize the nude body is not so mysterious. Have conversations with children about what they think of a particular commercial and why they think sexy, beautiful women frequently are seen in car commercials. Regularly dialogue with their kids from the time they are young, even though they most likely will be uncomfortable and resistant at first. If so, ask if you can talk with them about it in a few days. This lets them know that you are interested in talking with and listening to them without it disintegrating into a fight.

If that doesn’t work and if a child begins to act out his confusion at school or with other children, it is essential that you seek professional help. Otherwise, this dangerous behavior can become a calcified pattern that your child may well bring into adulthood. Then the consequences of this confusion may be much more significant and dangerous.

Be sure to tune in to “Relationships 101” next Monday, when I will speak with psychotherapist Jeff Ford on “Internet Addiction.”

"A Lot of Forgiveness Goin’ On!"

As I wrote in my last blog entry, I conducted an extended session with a young man who flew in from the East Coast. He sought my help to resolve issues created by the untimely death of his father when my client was 15. Unfortunately, his father’s dying was not the worst of it. Rather, it was the silence of both of his parents’ before and the continuing virtual silence of the mother afterward. For all of them, there was an elephant in the room that everyone walked around, as the teenage boy withdrew farther into himself.

The young man arrived in Minneapolis on Friday morning ready to get down to brass tacks. The flood of emotions began after about twenty minutes in my office, accompanied by profuse tears.

He had many "ah-ha" moments throughout the 5 hours and 15 minutes we worked together. When I asked his permission to summarize some of the major ones in my blog, his response was immediate and clear. “If it will help somebody, sure!”

First, I should note that it is a relatively simple process, though still painful, to resolve a loss at the time it occurs. That is, if there are no variables that complicate it, such as a family’s conspiracy of silence surrounding the loss, as my client experienced. However, when additional factors become entangled into the loss, resolving it is a painstaking process. It requires coming to terms with a host of often interlocking components that each must be understood.

Furthermore, just intellectually grasping what happened or didn’t isn’t enough. The range of feelings surrounding events must be experienced and expressed, in order for the dark clouds of grief that often turn to depression to lift.

Here is a summary of some of his healing realizations, in his own words.

“I had always felt there was something wrong with me that I felt either sadness or anger about my
father’s death.”

“I always felt a lot of shame because there was so much I couldn’t figure out, and that was
controlling my life.“

“The constant feedback that my feelings were wrong was crippling.”

“No one else in my whole family was [expressing feelings], so something must be wrong with me
that I felt sad and angry. I never knew how anyone felt.”

“[As a result], I became this other person completely, ruled by demons.”

“I always felt I’d been chosen to suffer.”

“I’m finally admitting to myself that I have been suffering. And I feel like I’m getting myself
back.”

Even reading that courageous young man’s feelings in isolation on paper is gripping. So many years, he isolated himself and felt isolated. So much pain, much of it unnecessary, if only someone had understood and effectively helped.

What’s important now is that he has chosen to help himself, and that he wants to help others by sharing his lessons from this difficult but maturing experience. I would be proud to have him as my own son any day.

Longing for Dad: Resolving Father Loss

This weekend for two days, a young man with whom I have been consulting by phone for the last couple of months is flying to Minneapolis from the East Coast to work with me. He found me when his mother spotted my book Longing for Dad: Father Loss and Its Impact and purchased a copy for both of them.

My client’s father had been ill with cancer for a year, but my client, who was then 15, wasn’t told of his father’s condition until a week before his death. This gave my client no opportunity to say good-bye to his beloved father. And worse still, his mother left him on his own after her husband’s death because, she admits, he was having a hard time and she didn’t know what to do. So there he was, trying to make sense of this traumatic experience all on his own. Yes, his mother brought him to a therapist for 2 or 3 sessions, but the therapist didn’t know what to do with him, either. So all his grief went down inside.

In essence, he lost both of his parents when the father died.

He recalls having tears once. He sobbed on his sister’s shoulder for a few seconds at the graveside until he could regain his composure. He then stuffed all his feelings down inside.

When he initially called to begin work with me, he was extremely depressed and, by his own admission, lost. His being clueless about how he felt translated to his being virtually paralyzed when it came to relating to women or knowing what he truly wanted to be when he grew up.

Although we made much progress in our phone appointments, I was delighted for him when he requested to come to Minneapolis to work face-to-face with me on the extremely arduous task of resolving his father’s death. He had been left alone with it for so long, that I interpreted this request as a giant step forward toward his being willing to trust and to ask for what he needed.

I have spoken with his mother three times. Now, in retrospect, she wishes she had been more assertive in breaking down her son’s protective shield and protecting him herself. Surely, this would have helped him with his skittishness with women. Undoubtedly, she was grieving and adjusting to being a widow herself. However, what a difference it would have made for her son if she had been more effective in protecting him and talking with him at the time.

Parents, please do not leave your children on their own to make sense of life’s traumas. They don’t have the cognitive machinery to do so until they are at least sixteen, according to the great Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget. And they need your support and constancy, then more than ever. If you don’t know what to say to them, just sit with them. Ask how they are feeling and how you can help. Above all, don’t abandon them. Just being there for and with them is an elegantly simple balm.